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Premiere Pro Capture Problem
I have a new JVC GR-HD1U from which I’m trying to capture video into Premiere Pro 2.0. I can get the device control to activate, I can start and stop the tape, the tape plays normally on the cam’s little LCD screen, but the preview screen stays black — when I attempt to capture, no frames are captured. I’ve tried manual, auto.
Yes, its a HD camcorder, however the stuff I’ve shot is in SD. I have an iLink out setting on the camera which can be set either to DV or MPEG2… I believe the MPEG2 setting is for HD footage, for SD i’m using the DV setting. (however I have tried both) Also on the camera’s onscreen menu I can set the iLink out to either Auto or SW… Not sure exactly what these mean but again I have tried both.
I’m running Windows XP on a system more than capable of capturing and editing video streams, Sapphire RADEON x700 video card, 3GB RAM, etc. I have SP2 and all the updates installed. including .NET version 2.0 and now the 3.0 add-ons… I’ve spent most of the last day making sure the drivers for my video card and etc are all up-to-date. Still I cannot get it to work…
The JVC cam does not include a firewire cable so I am using the one from my old Sony handycam. I installed the core filters included with the new cam on each end of the cable as directed in the manuals. I mention this as a possible mitigating factor — I’ll go out and buy a new iLink cable right now if it could solve the problem, but I’d hate to end up right back at this same point an hour later and $40 lighter in the wallet… =D But could this be related to the cable??
Windows recognizes the camera when I turn it on, which leads me to believe the iLink is working. I get the dialogue box asking me what I want to do… In the past I’ve captured on a Mac using Premiere and its been pretty much a plug and play situation. I’ve captured using windows before on other machines but never on this particular box.
I have also tried to capture using Windows Movie Maker and Roxio’s Video Capture Utility… pretty much the exact same results — no frames are captured. I guess this suggests its either a camera setting, a problem with the iLink connection, or a system level problem/conflict somewhere in the software pipeline.
I’ve searched the sage CC forums and a few other online resources, adobe’s knowledge base, wikia, etc… found some similar situations but nothing definitive. All my manuals and documentation are either vague or ambiguous on this topic.
If anybody has suggestions on how to proceed from this point I’d be most grateful. I’m starting to get bumfuzzled. It shouldn’t be this difficult!
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10 Replies
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I had similar problem with a Sony DSR-390P camera but in the end it was a conflict between a Matrox RTX.100 card and the N-Force chipset on my motherboard.
I still got the occaisional black capture window but restarting the PC restores functionality.
I also had the same issue with a DELL workstation and this was caused by Windows PnP getting in the way of the capture software. Even though Windows was instructed never to take any action when the camera was plugged in, it always grabbed the camera and prevented PPro from capturing – it also did the same with Avid NewsCutter. Similar to your issue when the this happened, no application could capture from the camera. In the end DELL suggested a registry tweak that fixed it. I don’t remember what that change was though sadly.
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Thanks Hewitt, interesting. I found another post that was a few years old and regarding a different JVC camera, but it suggested that not all Firewire cards will work properly with various camcorders, in this instance JVC models. They described the exact same symptoms — can control the camera from the capture window but no video or audio, black preview screen and 00 frames captured.
My Firewire card works fine with external Firewire drives but I’ve never used this card to capture before… I wonder if it is the culprit. I wish I had a list of supported cards because I’m not sure how to proceed short of just buying new cards randomly and testing them out. But thats not very practical… Ugh, I miss my Mac! LOL
Windows jumps right in whenever I turn on the camera, I’ve tried telling it to take no action, to capture using Premiere Pro, to capture using Windows Movie Maker, to capture using Roxio… it will launch the app but the attempted capture result is always the same.
Anybody?
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I had problems with the onboard (motherboard) firewire port but ended up using the firewire port on the Sound Blaster card. I put the capture tool into record and pressed play on the camera – sorted!
Fortunately Windows completely ignored the port on the Sound Blaster card.
But then I moved onto Avid Media Composer after hitting too many limitations with Premier Pro.
Have you checked the supported firewire cards on the Adobe website?
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When you turn your cam on does it show up in my computer under “scanners and imaging devices”?
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My camera shows up in My Computer under Scanners and Cameras as “AVC Compliant DV Camcorder”
After reading this thread on another board I was hoping that all I needed to do was swap out my Firewire card for one that runs off a Texas Instruments chipset rather that the V/A one… So I bought a new one last night at Fry’s, got it home, opened it up, and although the one pictured on the box clearly had a TI chip (you can see the logo on the big chip), the one inside had a V/A chip… D’oh! Another trip to Fry’s today and I got one with a TI chip… sure enough, the Device Manager shows the port now, under IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controller as a Texas Instrument OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller.
I’ve fired up all my various capture tools. Same exact result as before — camera is recognized and controllable, but black preview screen and no frames capture. =+(
This is driving me nuts. I’m still unable to complete what’s usually a five minute task after two days of research and trips to the computer store.
FWIW… my camera’s iLink out is set to SW as directed in the manual, and to MPEG2 as directed in the manual for SD footage. And Adobe’s site lists my camera as “Fully Supported” for Premiere Pro. It also says that any OHCI compliant Firewire card is supported. The JVC site is no help whatsoever as best I can tell. I also tried a brand new Firewire cable, in case that was the problem. No dice…
Anybody’s wisdom or wild speculation will be greatly appreciated.
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Okay,
Have you tried setting the capture device to a generic device (Plain old JVC) or even try a basic Sony camera in the device selection. This is common practice in some of the Avid applications when you cannot get control OR an input signal from the camera.
Or, have you tried setting the camera to play and then starting the capture?
More thoughts on the way shortly.
Richard.
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Another thought…
Have you tried recording in DV mode on the camera and trying to capture that in PPro?
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I appreciate your interest and help, Hewitt.
Yeah I think I’ve tried everything under the sun to capture the SD footage. No luck.
We had the same thought — I tried capturing DV footage and it DOES WORK fine. So that’s good! I haven’t tried capturing HD yet. And I still really need to figure out a way to capture SD still, but at least I can capture DV…
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You problem is you are trying to capture SD footage, your camcorder has three modes HD 720p mpeg2(preset in Ppro), SD 480p Mpeg2(no preset in Ppro) or DV 480i(preset in Ppro), the cam only outputs one of the three modes with no conversion between them, You should try importing the SD footage via the software supplied with the camcorder, the resulting file maybe workable in Ppro, but a much better chance would be using Premiere Elements 3.0 with the file.
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Hi There,
hope you don’t mind me jumping in here but you guys seem to know what you are talking about with this DV tech stuff.
Wonder if anyone can help with a problem I have recently encountered.
I have been using Premiere Pro 1.5 for some time now with my Sony TRV828, which has been working well.
Recently I linked a DVD player via the Sony and then to Premier, i.e. so premier was capturing from the DVD player.
I also used Windows Movie Maker while messing around to get things to work.
Now when I try to capture from Premier in the normal fashion, it comes with an error message saying it cannot operate the camera, and I should reset the camera, which have done a number of times to no avail.
It can see the camera, it tells me the camera is online, but that is as far as it goes.
I have reinstalled Premier, reinstalled the 1394 drivers, nothing works.
However, when I go to movie maker, I can use the camera and it’s controls!
It seems like Windows is hogging the camera controls.
I can see the camera and take photos via Scanners and camera wizard, only premier does not work.
Any suggestions?Many thanks in advance
Richard Graham
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